AN ARRANGED MARRIAGE

While in Delhi, two of us were invited to a Hindu wedding. We met our host, Sunil Pathak, the bride's brother, on our flight to India. To our amazement he invited us because he knew what a rare opportunity it would be for two "little-old-lady" school teachers from America to actually attend a Hindu wedding. He graciously, and with considerable effort, personally delivered invitations to us and saw that we had transportation. His entire family graciously spent time with us, courteously overlooking our improvised Indian wedding attire and hiking sandals. We were dazzled.

It was an arranged marriage as most still are here. The groom is a lawyer with the high court and the bride has just finished her university degree. She had only spent about an hour with him before the ceremony. There were many events leading up to the actual ceremony. Some involved the families, some prepared the bride. In the days before the wedding, she was bathed and oiled, and her hands were painted in elaborate designs with henna. The wedding dress was six yards of heavy gold and red brocade. It was wrapped in the traditional way of wrapping a saree around the body and over the head. The fabric was rather heavy and stiff only her face visible.

Guests began arriving about 7:30 p.m. and were received by members of the family. The bride, meanwhile, was closeted out of sight.

At 9:30 the groom arrived on a white horse accompanied by his relatives. He wore a beige suit and a traditional silver headdress with cascading strands of flowers which obscured his face. About a block away from the wedding hall, the groom and his relatives began a procession, dancing as they went. To accompany the dancers, there was a brightly uniformed brass band. To enable the dancers to see--it was quite dark--there were neon lights. [The neon tubes were attached in tridents of three to each transformers and seven of these were strung together with an umbilical cord of electric wires providing power from a near-by truck with a generator. Each set of lights and accompanying transformer was carried by a young boy.] So, the band played, the lights blazed and the family of the groom danced down the street.

When the procession reached the door of the hall, everyone stopped and gifts were exchanged between the male members of the families.

There was a time when the bride's family was required to present a dowry to the groom and his family. This orginally was probably paid in the form of land or cattle, more recently it has involved money and goods such as televisions, refrigerators and even motorscooters. This custom became very expensive for the parents of girls. And, in some cases even led to the killing of girl children. In more recent times it has led to men claiming that their wives have met with a terrible accident when, in fact, the husband killed the wife in order to get a new wife with a new dowry. Such abuses have led to the outlawing of the dowry. However, especially in villages the payment of dowry still seems to be one of the rules of the marriage game. In this case there was a exchange of gifts between families. Respective fathers garlanded each other with marigold leis, embraced and then exchanged gifts. Then brothers paired up, uncles paired up, cousins paired up making similar exchanges.

Finally, the groom entered the hall, where the guests were gathered, and was seated on a dias. Soon after, bride entered. We asked an aunt, who had married in much the same way, how she thought the bride, Reema, was feeling. The aunt replied that she was probably quite frightened. Once both the bride and groom were seated, the guests paid their respects by approaching the couple in an orchestrated and hierarchical manner to deliver gifts, give best wishes and be videotaped with the rather nervous pair.

Up until this point, the bride and groom were not the focus of attention as they would be in a western ceremony. As they entered the hall, relatives and guests seemed caught up in visiting with friends and enjoying the lavish vegetarian feast that was spread on tables along one entire wall of the hall.

After midnight, the focus shifted to the ritual as a fire was lit and both bride and groom circled it seven times, consecrating the marriage. At this point, the bride, who had orignally been seated to the right of the groom, took the seat to the left to indicate her new status. The wedding did not officially end until about 4:00 a.m. when the bride and groom left. We turned into pumpkins much earlier having providently told the taxi driver to wait.

This experience led us to investigate the process of arranged marriage. The traditional way is that the familes search for suitable matches with the help of relatives and friends. However, frequently today people are separated from their families and have to resort to other means. The newspapers and even the Internet are full of advertisements. To see some of these click here

click here to return to Delhi
click here to return to India98